Well-received changes set stage for big Cup night

A STRATEGIC date change, a boost in prizemoney and the addition of an extra time-honoured feature race have generated increased interest and excitement in the lead-up to this Saturday’s Group 2 Bendigo Pacing Cup meeting.

Hoping for a boost in crowd numbers, the Bendigo Harness Racing Club (BHRC) has moved its marquee meeting back a week to the second Saturday in January.

In what can truly be billed as a ‘Super Saturday’ of harness racing, a new date is accompanied by the addition of the Aldebaran Park Bendigo Trotters Cup to the race night program, to sit alongside the $75,000 Garrard’s Horse and Hound Bendigo Pacing Cup and the Group 1 Aldebaran Park Maori Mile.

Aiming to attract the best trotters from far and beyond, in a bid to gain attention not only across Australia, but on the international stage, the Maori Mile and Bendigo Trotters Cup will this year carry extra prize money.

The Mile, won the last two years by Arcee Phoenix, trained and driven by former Bendigo horseman Chris Svanosio, is now worth $100,000, and the trotters cup, traditionally run in April, worth $30,000.

The hype around the Bendigo Pacing Cup got an early boost with the pre-Christmas confirmation Australia’s most exciting pacer Kingman would launch his assault on the six-race Victorian Cups circuit in the first of the six at Bendigo.

The Luke McCarthy-trained pacer, who burst into prominence with his Victoria and New Zealand cups wins, is locked in to tackle the first three legs of the series, which carries a $1 million bonus for any pacer who can win four legs, including the $250,000 Group 1 Hunter Cup on 14 February.

McCarthy has committed to going first-up into the Bendigo Cup before backing up at Shepparton the week after and Ballarat a week later (24 January).

Adding to the allure, this year’s pacing cup will be run over 1609m, down from its traditional 2650m distance.

BHRC general manager Erik Hendrix said the many changes had been received favourably by the harness racing community and further spoken about very positively on the Campbell’s Comments live harness show.

“Bendigo wishes to reduce the pacing cup distance to 1609m as the quality of horses at present are so good,” he said.

“As the first cup of the Summer of the Glory, we wanted to attract the best horses that we could and that were sure to race as a lead-in to blow the cobwebs out.

“Bendigo is known as the speed track of Victoria, so we want to see if they can break the track record over the mile with a sub 1.49.”

Hendrix declared the $25,000 lift in prize money for the Maori Mile as significant, and hoped pushing the event back a week would lift crowd numbers.

“That first week of December, everyone is still getting over Christmas and New Year’s, so an extra week should give us a leg-up,” he said.

“Early package bookings were good. It was probably the best position we’d been in.

“We did get to marketing the event a bit earlier than normal, so I feel we are in good nick come Saturday night.”

An exciting night will come off the back of a sound year for the harness racing club, marked by a positive profit and loss statement, and having further established itself as the home of Wednesday night racing.

Work on a $1.8 million LED lighting and technology system upgrade, which will significantly improve visibility and cut ongoing costs, is now expected to start in April following final approval of a State Government grant.

The project, which will replace the club’s aging system with 190 new LED lights, and will provide greater clarity for participants, fans and broadcasters, is expected to last 12 weeks, with some disruption to programming.

Another major project in the pipeline is the construction of a roof over the horse stalls.

“Once we tick the box on those projects, we’ll have a super-complex from an industry point of view,” Hendrix said.

A big night of racing will be complemented by reserve dining, food trucks, live music, the popular fashions on the field and plenty of kids activities.

Admission is $10, with kids under 15 free.